1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to a control device and a control method of home electronics and, more particularly, to a control device and a control method of a temperature controller.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional air conditioners use a temperature sensor to sense an indoor temperature so as to accordingly adjust the wind strength of the air conditioner and the indoor temperature. However, because the temperature sensor is generally installed at a fixed position, e.g. inside the air conditioner, the temperature sensed by the temperature sensor is generally not able to reflect an actual temperature variation instantly. Therefore, the temperature adjusting efficiency will be degraded and the machine will consume much more power. In addition, because the wind direction of conventional air conditioners can not be adjusted according to the position of people, it is difficult to adjust the indoor temperature to a comfortable condition.
Therefore, the industry proposed a method for controlling an air conditioner according to infrared images captured by an infrared image sensor. For example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 10-259942 discloses “A control device of an air conditioner” which includes an infrared image sensor, a status determining circuit and a control circuit. The infrared image sensor is for photographing the interior of a room. The status determining circuit determines the number, position, action, movement or the amount of clothes of people in the room based on the images captured by the infrared image sensor. The control circuit controls an operational status, e.g. the wind direction and wind strength, of the air conditioner according to a determined result of the status determining circuit.
However, the control device mentioned above determines a status mainly based on the images captured by one infrared image sensor, but in this way the control device is not able to perform corresponding control according to a distance between human bodies and the air conditioner. Therefore, the present invention provides a control device and a control method of a temperature controller which calculates the distance between at least one active object and a temperature controller according to a disparity map so as to control the output power of the temperature controller, wherein when the active object is far from the temperature controller, the output power of the temperature controller is increased; on the contrary, when the active object is near to the temperature controller, the output power of the temperature controller is decreased. In this manner, the indoor temperature can be adjusted effectively and the consumption power of the temperature controller can be reduced.